Zed
Personal tier $0 forever · macOS, Linux, Windows · local or cloud models
A fast, open-source standalone editor with a built-in agent panel that can read, write and run code in your project, search the codebase and run terminal commands. Four local runtimes are documented out of the box — llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio and any local OpenAI-compatible server — and it auto-discovers models Ollama has already pulled, including context length and capability detection. The Personal plan is free forever and includes, in Zed's words, "Unlimited use with your API keys or external agents like Claude Agent, Codex CLI, and more." Pro is $10 a month, Business $30 per seat. The repository README describes the source as licensed primarily under GPL-3.0-or-later with Apache-2.0 components where marked, and on 31 July 2026 it showed 87,823 stars and had been pushed to that same day. A tool-permissions system and a per-hunk review interface let you accept or reject each individual change.
The difference from Kynd is supply, not capability. You install the runtime and pull the model yourself; nothing measures your Mac or chooses a model to fit its memory. MLX is not mentioned anywhere in Zed's local-model documentation, so local speed depends entirely on the runtime you installed. And it is an editor first — it assumes you can read and navigate code, where Kynd is aimed at people who cannot. On "local, agentic, standalone, no subscription", Zed beats Kynd on price, openness and platform reach.
Cline
Free, Apache 2.0 · VS Code, JetBrains, CLI, Kanban web UI · local or cloud models
An autonomous coding agent that installs into an editor you already have. It works with local Ollama, LM Studio or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and with frontier models through your own API keys — switchable per task, which is a genuine advantage over a local-only app. Its own pricing page says: "Cline is free for individual developers. Pay only for AI inference on a usage basis - no subscriptions, no vendor lock-in." It makes coordinated multi-file changes with linter-aware fixes, diffs, checkpoints and one-click undo on every step, and it executes in your terminal and reacts to output as it appears, including long-running dev servers, tests and deploys. Plan and Act modes, mature MCP support, and no account required when you use a local model. On 31 July 2026 it showed 65,303 stars and had been pushed to that day.
Where it differs is assembly. You bring VS Code or JetBrains, install the extension, install and run Ollama or LM Studio, pull a model and point Cline at it — and Cline's docs also tell you to enable "Use Compact Prompt" for local models. Its own local-model guidance is worth quoting fairly, because it applies to Kynd too: 16–32 GB of RAM for small or quantised models, 32–64 GB for mid-size coding models, and 64 GB or more for larger models and bigger context windows. It is coding only — no chat companion with memory, no voice, no research agent, no knowledge library.
GitHub Copilot
Free $0, Pro $10/month · inside VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Xcode · cloud by default, local possible
Copilot is usually described as a cloud tool, and by default it is. But Microsoft's own documentation is unambiguous: "Locally hosted models work without a GitHub account, without a Copilot plan, and without an internet connection." That makes Copilot a genuine free offline competitor, and any page claiming otherwise is wrong. Its agent mode works autonomously in the IDE, deciding which files to modify and proposing changes and terminal commands for approval, iterating until the task is done; a separate cloud agent can research a repository, write an implementation plan and make changes on a branch. Plans run from Free $0 and Pro at $10 a month up to Max at $100, with Business and Enterprise seats. Bring-your-own-key providers include Azure, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI and a custom endpoint.
Two honest caveats, both from the same documentation. Offline is degraded rather than complete: "Features that depend on the GitHub Copilot service, such as semantic search, inline suggestions, and embeddings, are not available offline" — so you lose code completion, arguably the headline feature. And using your own models in agent-host sessions requires switching on chat.agentHost.byokModels.enabled, of which the docs say: "This setting is experimental and takes effect only after the agent host process is restarted." On Business and Enterprise plans an administrator has to enable the policy before an individual can use it at all. You also supply the editor, the runtime and the model.
Cursor
Hobby free, Pro $20/month · macOS, Windows, Linux · cloud models
A standalone VS Code-based editor whose Agent edits files across a codebase, executes terminal commands and monitors their output, creating checkpoints before significant changes so you can restore. It inherits the VS Code extension ecosystem and keybindings, runs on Windows and Linux as well as Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, and has a team story Kynd has no equivalent for: SSO, SCIM, audit logs, pooled usage, access controls, usage analytics and agentic code review. Tiers documented on 31 July 2026 run Hobby free, Pro $20 a month, Pro Plus $60, Ultra $200, plus Teams and Enterprise, and an India-only Start tier at ₹649 a month.
No local-model support is documented anywhere on cursor.com — the models page lists cloud providers only. Even bringing your own key does not make it offline: Cursor's help page states that keys are "sent to our backend with every request because all requests are routed through Cursor's servers for final prompt building." Custom keys also "only work with chat models. Tab completion continues using Cursor's built-in models", and using one means "Your data handling follows the privacy policy of your chosen provider" rather than Cursor's zero-retention policy. One more thing worth stating plainly, since both appear on this page: Cursor has acquired Continue.dev, so they are no longer independent of one another.
Windsurf, now Devin Desktop
Free $0, Pro $20/month · macOS, Windows, Linux · cloud models, local agent harness
If you are searching for Windsurf, the name changed. Cognition renamed it Devin Desktop on 2 June 2026 and repositioned it as a command centre for managing local and cloud coding agents; the announcement says "Your plan, pricing, extensions, and other features remain the same". Devin Local is an agent harness that runs on your machine and can chat, write code, execute code, generate new projects and use an upgraded terminal, with MCP servers, memories and rules; it replaced the old Cascade agent. The editor stays backwards-compatible with VS Code extensions, keybindings and LSPs, ships an open Agent Client Protocol so third-party agents can run inside it, offers Kanban-style orchestration of many agents at once, and can hand work to cloud agents that run without your machine. Free tier at $0 with a light quota and limited model availability; Pro $20 a month, Max $200, plus Teams and Enterprise.
Be careful with the word "local" here: Devin Local means the agent harness runs locally, not the model. No local-model or offline support is documented on devin.ai or docs.devin.ai, and we are not going to state it either way beyond that. Signing in with a Devin account or supplying an API key is required, so there is no anonymous first run. Like the rest of this page apart from Kynd, it is coding only.
Continue.dev
Free, Apache 2.0 · VS Code, JetBrains, CLI · acquired by Cursor
An open-source, provider-agnostic coding assistant whose documentation still carries Ollama and self-hosted guides, so it can run privately in the same way Cline and Zed can. Its final 2.0.0 release specifically removed anonymous telemetry and pulled out authentication, which arguably makes the last shipped version less account-bound than most commercial rivals. On 31 July 2026 the repository showed 35,241 stars, and the Apache-2.0 code remains available as a foundation for anyone who wants to build on it.
The status has changed, and its own README says it best: "The continuedev/continue repository is no longer actively maintained and is read-only for all users." Continue's homepage now says only that Continue has joined Cursor. The repository is not archived and had commits as recently as 21 July 2026 — documentation changes — so "Continue is dead" would be an overstatement. But continue.dev/pricing returns a 404, no pricing is published anywhere we could verify, and we could not confirm specific autonomous file-editing or terminal-execution claims on Continue's own pages, so we are not asserting them.
Roo Code, which has closed
Archived 15 May 2026 · was a VS Code extension · no longer installable
If you came here looking for a Roo Code comparison, there is nothing live to compare. The repository was archived by its owner on 15 May 2026 and is now read-only, and roocode.com redirects to roomote.dev, an entirely different product aimed at teams rather than individuals.
The archived project points stranded users at alternatives, Cline among them, and that is the sensible move: Cline is the closest like-for-like — the same shape, in the same editor, free, and able to drive a local model. If you want a standalone app instead of an extension, Kynd is worth a look, but Cline is the shorter journey from where you were.